A lovely bird shaped candle reminds us that beauty is more than skin deep. Light the wick and she will show you that what is inside counts as well. Bíbí means "birdie" in Icelandic.

Product Information
Bíbí is available in two colours: mint and yellow.
The dimensions of a Bíbí candle are: 3.5 x 2.2 x 2.8 inches (9.0 x 5.6 x 7.2 cm).
Each candle should have a burning time of approximately 6 hours.
Materials: Paraffin wax, cotton wick and aluminium.

Porcerlain teapot with a brass handle. The teapot has two spouts, rests on a brass frame that can hold one tealight under it, and can be tilted to pour in two directions. Ceramic pot and cups are handmade by Ólöf Erla Bjarnadóttir.

This collection was born out of a project called: "Austurland: Designs from Nowhere", initiated and curated by Karna Sigurdardottir and Pete Collard. The project aimed to explore the possibilities for small-scale design and production in East Iceland, using locally sourced materials and skills. The work was created following a series of workshops that took place in Autumn 2013 featuring the designers Max Lamb, Þórunn Árnadóttir, Julia Lohmann and Gero Grundmann collaborating with local practitioners in East Iceland. The products were presented for the first time at Spark Design Space during DesignMarch.

I began my project in Eskifjörður by learning basic net-making skills from local school teacher Thórhallur Thorvaldsson. After hours of careful tuition I put my new skills into practice at the net-making company Egersund Island. The company makes and repair nets many hundreds of metres long in its cavernous quayside workshops.

Working alongside the Egersund team, I used the same materials and techniques but on much smaller scale to create the Skip Ahoy collection. The collection has a theme of ‘playtime’ and features skipping ropes, hula hoops, bags and key-chains made from the hard wearing net material in a variety of colours. Some pieces in the collection include reindeer antlers and bones as handles, bringing together elements from the land and sea in East Iceland. The collection is produced by Egersund in collaboration with local craftsmen.

Available at Spark Design Space in Reykjavík. www.sparkdesignspace.com

BERG a new collection designed for Brúnás, was debuted at Harpa in Reykjavík, during Design March 14th-17th of March 2013.

Brúnás are a cabinet making workshop that works a lot with surfaces, veneers and laminates, that imitate natural materials. Their specialisation is fulfilling the customer’s dream of the perfect kitchen unit, in affordable yet durable materials.

BERG make use of their specialised skills at imitating natural materials: they are faux basalt columns, hexagonal rock formations that are a prominent feature in Icelandic landscape.

"The basalt columns are by nature very geometric, and can have a beautiful disorientating shadows in them. I wanted to play with the boundaries of "faking" something, to make it look like a natural product, a heavy massive piece of stone, but at the same time have something that is obviously artificial about it by mixing materials and playing with optical illusion geometry."

For BERG, Brúnás can use smaller offcuts of their faux stone veneer and mdf from their workshop, which are usually too small for kitchen tops.

BERG come in 3 different heights and can be used as small side tables, stools and storages. They can grouped together in clusters to form a bigger landscape of tables. The edge of the lid and the edge of the box are sloped in opposite directions, creating a good grip to lift the lid off the box.

BERG is part of a collaboration project between Thorunn and Make by Þorpið. "The project is about mapping and finding new opportunities to utilise the skills, equipment, materials and production methods that exist in East Iceland with the vision to design products that are ready for production with as little adjustments or investments as possible. Most of the production companies are serving a small market and many of them have not expanded their business in decades. They are built on manual skills and craft rather than big industrial production. That kind of production should be perfect for product development and to test drive new products in a small scale market. The idea is to develop products with the companies, along their production processes, both technically and conceptually. That way I hope to create products that have an relevant link to their origin, both production wise and culturally." Here you can follow the process: www.make.is/thorunnarnadottir

The ceaseless march of time, measurable in endlessly smaller increments, is a western concept. In many parts of the world, time is not parsed into seconds or even minutes. In some places, people perceive time as speeding up when activities speed up and slowing down when its time to rest. There the time is personal, it’s part of the individual.

Sasa Clock counts time with a necklace of wooden beads placed over a slowly turning carousel. As the carousel rotates, a bead slips down the cord every 5 minutes. The last bead to have dropped indicates the time. This is the mechanical time.

The Sasa Clock offers you the option to “stop time”, and switch to your own personal clock. Take the necklace off the clock and wear it proudly as a statement that it is you that is in control. This is your time.

Telling the time:

The Sasa clock is available in 12 hour and 24 hour necklace versions.
The beads on the necklace are colour coded to indicate minutes, hours, and 12:00. As the carousel turns, every 5 minutes a bead slips down the cord. The last bead to have dropped indicates the time.
To tell the time, simply find the gold or silver 12:00 bead that has most recently slipped down the cord. From that point count the number of "hour" beads to find the hour and then the "minute" beads by fives. In the image here the time is 2:25pm. The 24 hour version indicates noon with a gold bead and midnight with a silver bead. The 12 hour necklace indicates noon and midnight with the same bead.

Winner of “Best Product” in “Accent on Design” at NY International Gift Fair, August 2010.

To celebrate Design March 2015 in Iceland, the Icelandic outdoor wear company 66°NORTH asked me to redesign their classic workman‘s cap. It’s the cap that has been keeping Icelandic fishermen warm for decades. The new caps were inspired by fishermen, the harbour and my PyroPet projects.They are a limited edition, available for a limited time.

While looking at the public transport problem in big cities I noticed that despite the somewhat ‘herded cattle’ atmosphere felt in the underground and bus systems, there is usually only one or two people traveling at any given time in five seater domestic cars.

In Johannesburg in South Africa it is quite common to see people making various hand gestures on the side of the road. The gestures are used daily by commuters to ensure they attract the right taxi minibus, going in the right direction.

Could some sort of hand signal system be used to utilise the available seats in our domestic cars as an alternative ‘public transport’? Hand signals could be based on a landmark or social characterisation specific to native locations. This way we can communicate directly and efficiently, our desired direction and end location directly to the passing potential ride.

The ‘ticket’ for this kind of system would be a glove to wear on your gesturing hand. The pattern of the glove would make the signals more visible to drivers in and amongst the traffic.

Bongo Blida is a collection of decorative objects, designed to add a touch of adventure to existing tableware. The idea is to allow Icelanders to conjure up their own tropical atmosphere at home at a time when travelling abroad has become too expensive due to Iceland´s near economic collapse.

Bongo Blida was developed during the summer of 2009 at the workshop of Sigridur Sigurjonsdottir. Her collaborators were Thorunn Arnadottir and Hreinn Bernhardsson. The project received a grant from The Icelandic Research Fund for Graduate Students in 2009.

Nordurmyrin is a meat cutting- and serving board. It draws its name from a neighbourhood in the old east of Reykjavik. Its street names are named after renowned characters in the old icelandic sagas: Landnama, Laxdaela and Njala. These are examples of the street names: Audargata, Gudrunargata, Gunnarsbraut and Skarphedinsgata. When meat is cut on the board the blood juices rush down the streets. It refers to the conflicts that arose in the societies of the second and third generations of Icelandic settlers.

Christmas window display for Geysir clothing shops in Reykjavík and Akureyri. "The Yulecat" or "Jólakötturinn" is well known beast from Icelandic Christamas folklore. He is said to hunt down and those who do not get any new clothes before Christmas.

The idea was to reimagine this creature as a vicious fashion police, watching bypassers closely from the windows of Geysir.

Geysir has a certain nostalgic atmosphere, so I wanted to make the Christmas cat resemble oldfashioned toy. The snow flakes are irregularly clipped from paper to create a dreamy, old school vibe.

The window display in Reykjavík was awarded as "The Best Christmas Window Display 2013" by the the association of shopkeepers in Reykjavík city centre.